HISTORY IN YOUR GARDENSaffron Crocus (Crocus sativus)

Crocus sativus, the saffron crocus, produces its deep-purple flowers in autumn. The petals protect the stigma inside, from which, when dried, saffron is collected.

However, it needs 4,000 flowers to produce an ounce of saffron.

It is a tricky plant to grow in British gardens, needing rich soil that will reliably dry out and bake in the summer.

Another source of saffron is Crocus nudiflorus, which is found around tracks between Benedictine monasteries and their outlying farms.

The Benedictines came from Cluny, in France, where C. nudiflorus grows wild. They may well have attempted to grow it as a more easily cultivated substitute for C. sativus.

Other sites, which seem to have no clear geographical connection, all turn out to have belonged to the Knights Hospitallers or the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, who brought the corms back with them from the crusades.

Presumably these, too, were part of an attempt to create a supply of saffron, or maybe even a saffron substitute.